Jair glanced covertly around as they descended the final stair to the ground floor of the library tower. He flicked his eyes to the side, seeing that the two Hyperion warriors on this level were fully occupied with explaining things to the group of unhappy upperclassmen. Perfect.
“It's for a good cause, I promise,” Jair continued lightly, maintaining the casual conversational tone.
"To save the world, right."
Thankfully Ran had loosened up enough through the discussion that he no longer looked like someone trying to pretend to be normal. Just needed to keep him from thinking about the fact that they were trying to do anything suspicious for a little longer.
"Maybe not the whole world,” Jair conceded. “Almas and Orard, at least.”
Almas, the largest continent, home to the Kingdom of Veor, among others. Veor being the kingdom within whose jurisdiction the Astralla region belonged. Almas was the hottest and driest of the continents, boasting more desert than anywhere else on the planet, making Veor one of the safest kingdoms in the world.
Orard, the continent to the north and west of Almas, was by contrast one of the most lush. It also had the heaviest and most frequent conflicts, both along the coasts and rivers, and internally between countries.
“Orard? They’re withdrawing from the coast to threaten their neighbors, why would you care about them?”
They crossed out the doors and emerged into the open air. Almost there.
No one shouted for them to halt, no ambushers jumped out at them with weapons raised. No problems at all.
“Oh, I don’t care about Reskas or their neighbors in the least," Jair didn't look back; the action itself would attract more attention than it was worth. “The Oriad may not be a safe place, but I couldn't let Aethron's home burn down. Even if he does have unfriendly neighbors."
“Oriad…” Ran’s eyes widened and he stared at Jair. “Aethron lives in the vampire forests? ‘Unfriendly neighbors’ is quite an understatement.”
"They only come out at night and only eat the unwary. Sometimes kidnap too, but that's more a precursor to... well." Jair glanced sideways at Ran. "You'd probably prefer not to know."
Ran gave him a dirty look. “I know what vampires are like. Everyone knows that.”
“But how accurate are stories, I wonder?”
“Have you ever met a vampire?”
“Of course. More than once. They’re all the same,” Jair’s voice gained enthusiasm, “share an identical soulspell and everything. But their manabodies are inverted compared to elves, humans, or beastkin. Instead of echoing imprints inward, they echo their soulspell outward.”
Having a singular soulspell so strong and clear it overwrote everything else made vampire manabodies tenacious things. Jair had seen them up close more than he was comfortable with. Even after the body's destruction, their soul would pilot the drifting manabody in a relentless attempt to imprint itself over whoever was nearby, often outlasting their death for minutes or even hours before finally decaying enough to collapse.
“So are the stories true?” Ran pressed. “Regardless of their fascinating anatomy.”
“Well, in this case, yeah. The stories aren’t wrong.”
Ran smacked him.
Jair caught his hand and tugged him into a run. They’d moved out of sight of the library doors now, so he took off for the main transit platform.
They passed the dome, but before they could cross into the open beyond the lecturing halls Jair caught a flicker of red.
“Aelir!” Jair cursed again, more vehemently. Ran saw them in the same moment and reversed course just as fast.
Another Hyperion pair waited by the transit platform.
Jair and Ran slipped out of sight behind the shrubberies, crouching to catch their breath.
“They’re watching for anyone trying to escape. I should have expected this.”
"I could try to distract them. I'm assuming it's you they're after? Mr. 'I have so many criminal contacts'?"
"Undoubtedly." Jair exhaled in irritation. "I can't imagine what they have on me now. I haven't even talked to a smuggler yet, let alone... any of the stuff they'd care about."
He couldn't have said why he felt so sure that this would be bad for him, but he couldn't shake the feeling and knew better than to distrust his gut.
Ran peered out through the shrub’s spindly branches. "I don’t see a glow. The platform's probably been disconnected and drained, so we’d need to charge it fully."
“That complicates things.” A few moments’ distraction to slip in, that would be viable. Long enough to fully charge the thing? The chances of one of them glancing over would be too high.
Jair cast about for any other way to slip out of the academy without being caught.
The duo would be unlikely to leave their post for much, Hyperion were too well disciplined for that. At least for now. Later in the day, they may grow more lax, but when they’d only just arrived? They’d be far too alert to fall for any sort of simple trick two students could pull off.
If he had Lift he could have easily taken them over the outer walls. But without his imprints–
Wait.
Jair grinned. "Looks like we'll have to change our plans for the day."
"Aw, so I don't get to visit the spooky haunted moon today after all? What a shame."
"Your deep mourning is noted. But, no, I think we can make the trip on time. Come on, let's go see if the wall is fixed up yet."
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Professor Firdon was the one who usually did that kind of repairs, and with his death they’d have to ship in a new stone mage. Given the difficulty and paperwork involved in allowing anyone new into the academy grounds, Jair knew from experience, they could be looking at days or even weeks before they were able to complete the repairs.
"There are some basic patches over the holes," Ran said. "It's still quite a mess, but it’s too high to jump down from safely. What use is that going to be?"
"Let's just hope they haven't gotten around to fixing your hidey tunnel either."
“Ohhh.” Comprehension dawned, and Ran didn’t resist as Jair tugged him back the way they'd come. "But even if the tunnel is there, what then? You want us to, what, jump off the cliff? Hide in the desert?"
"Of course not. We're going to get eaten by sharks."
Ran sighed. "Care to elaborate? I'm sure the plan is much more complicated than that. Are you suggesting we fake our deaths?"
"Not at all. I'm not sure how much you know about sandfishing?"
They crossed around the back of the library towers, keeping well away from the doors, and sticking close enough to the buildings themselves that anyone looking out of the windows would need to be at a pretty extreme angle to spot them.
"Uh... people do it, that's where we get most of the meat used here apart from the imported stuff, little flying skiffs, harpoons, spellglass constructs?"
"So, nothing, basically. Then think of this as a learning opportunity."
Ran pouted. "I'm not sure I like you any more."
"Did you ever?" Jair paused to check the open area between the library towers and the wall, but if anyone was watching they were doing so from out of sight. "Admit it, you only befriended me for my inheritance."
Ran shook his head. "Right... you grew up in a sandbog so you'd know all about it. Enlighten me, oh great fishernoble."
Jair snorted in amusement. “Sandbog fishing is nothing like deep desert fishing. Can’t use a net around here, and that’s 90% of what sandbog fishing is.”
They reached the wall. It took a moment to locate their tunnel; the front section had fallen in, sand blown over the entrance and half filling the depression. Thankfully, Firdon's efforts in shoring it up beforehand had maintained stability long after the basic hole Jair and Ran had made would have been completely filled in. Once they crawled through the sand drift at its entrance, the tunnel itself was stable and clear of debris.
"I never thought I'd be using this place again," Ran mused as they walked through the dim passage.
The exit on the far end was almost fully blocked up, probably having collapsed. That part wasn't as stable, since it had been ripped open in a hurry to evacuate Ran out into the desert, but it hadn’t yet filled in completely.
After a brief scramble they emerged onto the clifftop behind the Institute and stared out across the open sand. Astralla City was a dark smudge across the horizon. Away to the left, the Sejrilo oasis glinted like a distant blue jewel.
"So, this plan of yours… I think I deserve more of an explanation than 'we're going to get eaten.'"
"Simple. We're going to start walking, and when you feel the sand below you shudder, you let yourself drop and tuck into a ball so we're gulped in properly. There'll be a few seconds of complete chaos while we tumble around in there and it spits the sand back out, which is the window for me to do my magic thing, and then we're on our way."
"Magic thing? What magic thing!"
Jair only smiled knowingly.
Of the many sand-swimming creatures that filled the desert heart of Veor, sandsharks were the largest predators. They were also the only ones large enough to fit a human in their mouth, a fact which enabled them to act as a form of transportation for those trying to cross the desert.
One of the safest forms, perhaps the only safe form. A sandshark might attack a caravan or a skiff, but they wouldn't attack each other.
By the back of its throat there was a spot which, if targeted with focused mana like you were activating a construct, could white out the creature's senses and allow rudimentary control to the 'rider'.
However, since the only way to gain access to the thing's control cluster was to be swallowed whole and hope you could hit the right spot before you were too far into the much less hospitable stomach, taming a sandshark wasn’t something to undertake frivolously. The tight confines made it a questionable option for passenger trips, which further put off those who could either use a local transit platform or wait for lunar passage.
The whole thing had initially struck Jair as needlessly convoluted. Why not hire a gravity mage? Or build stronger shielding constructs? There had to be a thousand better ways to cross the desert than intentionally getting eaten and hope you were spat out at the right place.
After he'd had his legs eaten off a few too many times trying his 'better ways', Jair grudgingly capitulated. He’d try the sandfishers’ methods, just to prove to himself that they were ridiculous.
To his disappointment, spearing unshaped mana up into its control cluster while it tried to swallow him whole did exactly what everyone said it would. The beast stilled, moving only as directed by his touch. Of course, being trapped inside a warm, dry, completely dark and enclosed space wasn't the best spot for steering, so he'd ended up turned around and completely in the wrong spot, much to the amusement of his guides.
But over time he learned the tricks. How to kneel with hands to either side, feeling the subtle vibrations that indicated the density of the sand, how to interpret the faintest sounds of his carrier. How long he could wait before it would rouse from its trance and finish its Jair-shaped snack.
It may have been lifetimes since he’d last done so, but he wouldn't have the slightest problem either taming or riding a sandshark across to Astralla City safely.
"You trust me, right?"
"It'd be a bit late for deciding I don't," Ran grumbled. "You've already saved me once. That doesn't mean I have to like the idea of getting eaten. Didn't we just go through that whole training regimen to avoid getting eaten?"
"Poison dragon, you couldn't survive inside long enough." Jair rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder if any of the dragon types could be utilized like this though? If so, they'd open up trade and transit between lunar passages in an insane way."
"Aelir above, we're going to go getting ourselves eaten by dragons again?"
"Nah, not any time soon. For now, one challenge at a time."
They started walking across the desert.
Nothing immediately appeared to eat them.
"Are you always going to be this intense?" Ran asked eventually.
"Probably. Why?"
"Well, from what you told me, you went straight from forcing yourself to ascend Maelstrom, to forcing yourself to save me, and now forcing yourself to save yourself, without a moment's rest."
"That's not true, I took an entire night off after I put Lian in his place."
Ran glared at him flatly. "You're a time traveler! You can solve problems any old time, what about regular life stuff? What about visiting the mountains and climbing a tree like a guru?"
Jair scoffed lightly. "First, I hate this place with a burning passion. If I never set foot in Astralla Mageblade Institute again, I'll be happy. Getting everything there done and out of the way as quickly as possible is more for the sake of maintaining my sanity than anything. Once we get out into the world, get some good distance both physically and temporally from here, we can go on any vacation you want."
"I mean for yourself, not just to satisfy me."
"I've been doing this a very long time. For a while, I did take time off. I'd let things go by, step back, not interfere. But there's only so much that amusement can do. Yes, I have all the time in the world, can squander it how I please, but there's no satisfaction in it."
"None?"
"Momentary, fleeting. Nothing worth pursuing. Empty, in the end." Jair grinned then, breaking out in a broad smile, eyes laughing. "See? This! This is a thousand times more meaningful than anything I could chase in an empty amusement loop. Look around you! This is a scenario that's never happened. Sure, you and I have fled across the desert together in the past, but that was always fleeing the dragon. I have a deadly poison to cure on a tight deadline! We have unknown adversaries doing unknown things! Imagine, so much to discover about the new state of the world."
"Yep. Crazy. I knew it."
Before Jair could soundly refute the claim, the sand shuddered beneath them. "Drop!" Jair grabbed Ran and wrapped himself around him, the two of them crouching into a nicely consumable ball as the sandshark's mouth rose up and closed over them.
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